The Case of the Missing Secretary by Diana Palmer Page B

her dreamily and kept making veiled references to how well he could provide for a new wife. The kids wanted to take her hunting with them, he added, which was a real honor.
    “No, thanks.” She chuckled. “I’d look sad with arrows sticking out all over me.”
    “Oh, none of that,” Emmett protested. “They hunt with those electronic spotting guns. Toys, you know. I wouldn’t dream of turning them loose with real bullets!” “Did you know that if you get close enough with a radio signal
     
    The Case of the Missing Secretary345 you can ignite a dynamite cap?” Polk asked conversationally, which caused his father to choke on his biscuit.
    “Out!” Tansy told the three, who had finished eating, while she hit Emmett on the back to dislodge the biscuit.
    “I didn’t say we’d ever done it,” Polk muttered defensively. “Anyway, we couldn’t get the man to sell us any dynamite.” “Oh, my God!” Emmett wailed.
    “Wouldn’t you like to enlist them in the Marine Corps?” Logan suggested. “You could lie about their ages.”
    “You won’t feel like that when you have kids of your own,” came the droll reply. “Flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood…” “Speaking of blood, they’re after the cat again,” Tansy remarked.
    Emmett muttered something violent and went to yell out the win-dow. When he came back, he looked even older.
    “I can’t stand it. Please, for God’s sake, marry me!” he pleaded with Kit, dropping to his knees by her chair and draping one long, muscular arm over her lap. “I’ll reform. I’ll stay home and cook barbecued ribs and breakfast and manage old man Regan’s ranch. Anything. Just save me from those kids!”
    Kit doubled over laughing. She just shook her head. “Thank you for the offer, but I really can’t. I have to find missing people.”
    He looked up at her thoughtfully, his lips pursed, one eye narrowed. “Find people, do you? Okay. How are you at the reverse? Couldn’t you hide me where those kids can’t find me?”
    “Why, you craven coward,” Tansy chided. “Get off your knees and act like a proper father.”
    “I did try, Tansy,” he said good-naturedly as he got gracefully to his feet. “But just as I broke the switch, one yelled to distract me, the second one positioned himself behind my knees and the third one knocked me over the second one into the river. I haven’t really tried to hit one of them since.”
    “You don’t have to hit them,” Tansy continued, unabashed. “You could discipline them in other ways. Take away their television privileges.”
    He stared at her. “We don’t have a television. Those kids threw a bowling ball through it. Thank God we have a good volunteer fire department here.”

346
    Diana Palmer
     
    “Emmett, you’re not the man I remember,” Logan said, shaking his head.
    “I’m not sure I ever was. Things have gone from bad to worse since she left me,” he said, obviously referring to his ex-wife. “Since I got custody, no sane woman will have me. Maybe I could lock the kids up until I got one to the altar. Too late for you, of course,” he said with a wistful smile in Kit’s direction. “It’s got to be a woman who doesn’t know they exist until we’re legally married!” “Buffaloed by three children,” Logan scoffed. “Imagine that.” “You try dealing with them,” Emmett dared. “Not me. I’m on the first plane to Houston this afternoon.”
    Emmett put down his coffee cup. “Why not stay until tomorrow?”
    “Yes, why not?” Tansy seconded. “You and I get no time together these days, Logan. You’re either too busy making money or traveling around the world or escorting that taffy-brained woman friend of yours around town.” He glared at her. “Let’s leave Betsy out of this, shall we?”
    “Suit yourself,” Tansy replied. “You could fly back tomorrow with me. I can’t stay around much longer. I’m only filling in for the housekeeper.”
    “My housekeeper,” Emmett